"NO," SAYS PRESIDENT BIDEN. “THERE'LL BE NO NUCLEAR WAR WITH PUTIN.”

By Edwin Cooney

Before they are powerful, most world leaders are gifted with numerous material luxuries which give them pleasure beyond the gratifications of public office. Additionally, most of them have the capacity to draw distinctions between the foolish and the practical when it comes to public policy. Thus I, along with Joe Biden, believe that there will be no nuclear war with Vladimir Putin initiated by either Putin or President Biden.

Back in the mid 1980s during Soviet Premier Konstantin Chernenko's 393 days-long premiership (February 13th, 1984 to March 10th, 1985) and the time of President Reagan's re-election to the American presidency, the world was filled with much consternation regarding the effects and placements of nuclear weaponry.

Americans wondered if the Soviets would react badly if the Reagan administration put cruise missiles into NATO. The Russians got their undies in a bunch over President Reagan's Star Wars missile defense program. Then, there was the distinction between nuclear weapons that destroyed absolutely everything and those missiles that killed people and left buildings and supposedly the opponent's leftover nuclear weaponry intact. Finally, there was the "nuclear winter" prediction by Carl Sagan, a prominent astronomer and documentary producer, whose nuclear winter documentary even impressed President Reagan. Dr. Sagan pointed out at that time that not only were there far more nuclear weapons on both sides for absolute destruction, but the situation was equal to living in an environment that was soaked in a sufficient amount of gasoline so that it would be fatal to light a single match! 

What the public and hopefully every present and future national leader should grasp is the reality President John F. Kennedy asserted during his Cuban Missile Crisis speech of Monday, October 22nd, 1962. As he enunciated the risks of Khrushchev's missiles in Cuba, he reminded Americans that were we to engage in a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, the “fruits” of victory would be ashes in our mouths.

Back in the 1930s in his book "The World Crisis," Winston Churchill sought to measure the costs of wars over the centuries. First it was man against man, army against army. Wars were fought during warm weather months, they were mostly fought on battlefields, and so forth. It wasn't until World War I that wars came to be fought between whole peoples. That reality has also been expressed in the analysis that the living in the wake of a nuclear exchange would envy the dead.

A few short years ago, someone asserted that a nuclear war between theocratic societies might be even more dangerous since spiritual antagonists believe that paradise awaits the victor in a religious war. I think that such a war would be called Armageddon. (No doubt, some believe that Armageddon is something humanity must inevitably face one day.) On the other hand, a struggle between strictly doctrinaire societies is less likely since materialists know they must survive to enjoy their materialism. Victory over communism has been seen by most Americans as a triumph of capitalism over regulation and liberty over tyranny! On the other hand, religious conflict is invariably a spiritual triumph for the victor.

Beyond the above analysis, there's the geographic reality for the victor in a nuclear exchange. In the Middle East, due to their geographic proximity, nations with nuclear capacity can hardly afford to strike at an enemy without endangering the ultimate well-being of its own citizens: Israel versus Iraq or Iran, India versus Pakistan, North Korea versus South Korea. Could Communist China afford environmental damage to itself should it use nuclear missiles against India or South Korea? Could Communist China afford to govern Taiwan if China attempted to conquer Taiwan by first poisoning it?

I'm betting that Vladimir Putin is more interested in ruling his people as they exist than he is in the cleanup he would be responsible for conducting in the wake of the atomic poison so recently suffered by his people.

I close this grim analysis with a mitigating reality as I see it. Human nature being what it is, humankind has demonstrated over the millennia and the centuries its determination to survive and to flourish!

Some would assert that what I just wrote is plain "common sense.” I wouldn't call it plain common sense in view of some of the religious, geographic and attitudes I've just discussed. I'll have much more to say about common sense next week!  

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY